


the vast and endless sea

by carolinecrane



Category: Ghost Ship (2002)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-30
Updated: 2011-03-30
Packaged: 2017-10-17 09:21:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinecrane/pseuds/carolinecrane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes Munder over a year to find his sea legs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the vast and endless sea

**Author's Note:**

> AU in which we throw out the ending of the film in favor of a happier ending.

It takes Munder more than a year to recover enough to really get his sea legs back. He swears he’s ready months before that, but Dodge has known him long enough to know that he’s trying to push too hard too soon. So he won’t even talk about getting back out on the water until Munder’s doctor gives him the all clear, and even then it takes a few day trips on a rented sailboat to convince Dodge that Munder’s steady enough on his feet to get back into salvaging.

They’re out on the sailboat for the third time when Dodge finally concedes that Munder’s as close to a hundred percent as he’s going to get. When he says so Munder just rolls his eyes and grumbles something about already having a mother, but Dodge has never heard Munder speak to either of his parents in all the years they’ve been together, so he knows he’s the only one looking out for Munder. If that means sometimes he has to be the heavy in order to keep Munder in one piece, he’s okay with it.

“You want to head back in?” Dodge asks, leaning back to watch Munder steer the sailboat through smooth waters. It’s not warm, exactly, because Alaska’s never really _warm_ , but it’s the middle of summer, and the sun’s still high in the sky even though it’s almost dinner time, and it’s kind of nice, just the two of them out on the water.

Munder shrugs from his spot behind the tiller and glances over at him. “Boat’s not due back until noon tomorrow. We could make a night of it.”

They could. They didn’t pack for an overnight trip, but there’s a little food, and they’ve got some beer, and it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve gone without a toothbrush between them. But it would be the first night they’ve spent on the water in over a year, and even though he knows they have to get it over with sometime, Dodge can’t help being a little nervous at the thought.

“Up to you,” is all he says. “It doesn’t make a difference to me.”

“Liar,” Munder says, but he’s grinning, and when Dodge laughs he lets go of the tiller and reaches down to pull Dodge to his feet. “If we’re staying out here let’s drop the anchor and eat something. I’m starved.”

They spend the next half hour or so tying down sails and dropping the anchor, and once the boat’s rocking gently on the water they head below deck. The cabin’s pretty small for both of them, but there’s a small table and a sink, and the bed’s big enough for two. It’s better than some of the tugs they’ve worked on, anyway, and it’s just the two of them, which is all that really matters.

Dodge turns on the radio while Munder fishes a couple beers and the rest of the sandwiches out of the cooler they brought with them, but once he catches the weather forecast he shuts it off again. And there’s no reason to expect a sudden change in the weather when the sea’s been calm all week, but Dodge isn’t all that big on taking chances these days.

When he turns around Munder’s shaking his head, and Dodge rolls his eyes and drops onto the bench across the table from him. “What?”

“Man, you gotta relax. Save the freaking out for when we’re actually working again, okay? There’s no ghost ship out here, no weirdos with crates full of cursed gold. It’s just you and me. The way it should be.”

It’s been just the two of them for a year now, and that’s part of the problem. Because as soon as they go back to working salvage, they’re going to have a crew, and that means it won’t be just them anymore. Even if they find a tug they can afford to buy with the cash they’ve saved up, they’ll have to hire a mechanic and a navigator, and maybe a couple extra hands just to pick up shifts on the Bridge.

Which means trusting other people – people they don’t know – and Dodge isn’t sure how ready he is to do that. They’ve talked about teaming up with Epps again, but they haven’t heard much from her since Murph died, and there’s a part of Dodge that thinks it’s better that way. He has enough of a reminder of what happened whenever he watches Munder walk across a room, and having Epps around will just remind them all what they lost.

And maybe it’s selfish, because the few times he’s seen Epps in the past year, Dodge takes one look at the sadness in her eyes and thinks about what _he_ could have lost. If Munder had died the way Murph did, or later in a hospital in some country where Dodge didn’t even speak the language, he’s not sure he’d still be walking around.

“Seriously, knock that shit off. This is the closest thing we’ve had to a vacation in…ever, and your ass isn’t spending the whole night brooding.”

“Fuck you, I’m not brooding.”

“I’ll let you fuck me if it’ll get you to stop brooding,” Munder says, and when he grins Dodge can’t help laughing.

“You’d let me fuck you anyway.”

“Are you calling me a slut?” Munder asks, and that makes Dodge laugh even harder.

“ Hey, buddy, if the shoe fits.”

“Nice. Classy,” Munder says, and he’s pretending to be pissed, but Dodge can see the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“You know that’s my favorite thing about you,” he says, and it’s kind of true, except that it’s not. There’s a lot he loves about Munder, and yeah, the sex is part of it, but even during that long dry spell after his first surgery, Dodge didn’t miss the sex that much. Mostly because he was too busy trying to convince himself Munder wasn’t going to die, and even once he was really out of the woods Dodge was too scared of causing more damage to do much for awhile.

“Your favorite thing about me is the fact that I put up with you,” Munder says around a mouthful of roast beef sandwich. “You’re worse than a chick sometimes, I swear.”

“Who else is gonna watch your ass? Not you, that’s for damn sure.”

“You just like looking at my ass,” Munder says, and Dodge just shrugs, because it’s not like he’s wrong. It gets him a grin, anyway, and Munder doesn’t really need the ego boost, but Dodge mostly doesn’t mind. The sex is usually better when Munder’s feeling good about himself, at least, which technically makes _him_ the chick in this relationship, but Dodge knows better than to say it out loud.

For awhile he just sits there and nurses his beer, watching Munder over the top of the bottle while he polishes off his dinner and empties his own beer. When he finishes Dodge expects him to toss out a crude come-on and start pulling his clothes off, just to show Dodge how slutty he can be. Instead he stands up and pulls a couple more beers out of the cooler, tucking them under one arm before he holds out his free hand to Dodge.

“Come on, let’s go back out on deck for awhile.”

“What, you wanna watch the sunset?” Dodge asks, laughing and letting Munder pull him to his feet.

“There’s no sunset, dumbass,” Munder reminds him, like Dodge doesn’t already know. He follows Munder above deck anyway, and when Munder takes a seat on the bench the runs along the stern, Dodge sits next to him and takes the beer Munder offers him.

The sun hasn’t moved much, and the boat’s rocking back and forth gently. It’s relaxing in a way tugs never are, and for a second Dodge wishes they could just buy a boat just like this one and sail around the world for the rest of their lives. They’d run out of money pretty fast, though, and anyway they’d both probably get bored with nothing to salvage.

Munder leans hard against his side, like maybe he knows what Dodge is thinking. Dodge swallows a sigh and slides his arm around Munder’s shoulders to pull him even closer, and Munder grins and lets Dodge run a hand through his hair.

“I heard about a tug for sale out at Benson’s shipyard. It’s a repo, so we could probably get a deal. We could go check it out tomorrow.”

“Okay, but we’re not buying it if it doesn’t have separate crew quarters,” Munder says. “I don’t care how good the deal is, I’m not sleeping in bunks like on the _Warrior_ ever again. Cramming into the shower after everyone’s asleep just to get off? No, thanks.”

Dodge laughs and turns far enough to press a kiss to the top of Munder’s head. It’s been a long time since they’ve been desperate enough for a little privacy to try to fit both of them in a shower that’s barely big enough for one guy, and he hasn’t missed it any more than Munder. They’ve gotten kind of spoiled, sleeping in the same bed every night since Munder’s last hospital stay, but Dodge doesn’t see why they have to give that up just because they’re going back out on the water.

“Even if the crew quarters are separate, they’re still gonna have bunks.”

“As long as there’s a door, I don’t care about the rest. The damn thing can be held together with duct tape and prayers for all I care, as long as we can lock our door at the end of the day.”

Dodge knows he’s supposed to think Munder’s just worried about their sex life. They’ve gotten pretty spoiled in that department too; used to be they’d go days, sometimes weeks without finding any time to be alone for more than a kiss, maybe a hand job if they were lucky. And it’s not like they have sex every night even now, but the point is that they _can_.

Still, the important part is that they fall asleep next to each other every night, whether they fuck first or not. Munder kisses him goodnight every night, and he always takes his time about it, like he knows as well as Dodge how close they came to never being able to do it again.

The thought’s enough to make Dodge shiver, even though it’s not really that cold out. He pulls Munder a little closer against him, wraps his other arm around Munder’s chest and presses his face to Munder’s neck.

“Okay,” he murmurs against Munder’s skin. “You want a door, we’ll get you one.”

Munder huffs a laugh and turns in Dodge’s grip until they’re face to face. “And you say I’m easy,” he says right before he leans in and presses their lips together.

Dodge grins against him and kisses him back, hand in Munder’s hair and tilting his head to fit their mouths together. Munder tastes like beer and mustard and salt air, leaning heavy against Dodge and just letting Dodge hold him up. He’s breathing hard through his nose already, and when his free hand fists in the front of Dodge’s sweater he sort of expects Munder to suggest they take this back downstairs.

But when he pulls back to press his forehead against Dodge’s he doesn’t offer to take Dodge below deck and make good on that promise to let Dodge fuck him. Instead he plants one more lingering kiss on Dodge’s lips, then he settles back against Dodge’s chest and drags his arm around Munder again.

“If we find a tug with separate quarters we’ll rip out the bottom bunk and put in a bigger bed before we start looking for a crew,” Dodge says, grinning into Munder’s hair when a hand curls around his.

“If we did that we could give up the apartment and just live on the tug.”

He’s got a point, but they’ve called that apartment home since they first hooked up. The thought of never going back there is kind of weird; almost like they’d be leaving part of them behind. Still, they’ve been through a lot in the past year, and there was awhile there where Dodge didn’t expect to see that apartment ever again, so maybe they could use a fresh start.

“It won’t have that bathtub I promised you.”

Munder laughs, his whole body shaking against Dodge’s, and when he leans back to look up at Dodge he's grinning. “It’ll be worth the sacrifice.”


End file.
